THE MAID WHO HEARD THE CELLAR DOOR CLOSE

Leo left Lily in Beatrice’s care and drove home with Mateo, Dana, and two officers who had come to take Victoria’s statement.

Victoria greeted them in the front hall wearing a fresh white blouse.

“Thank God,” she said, moving toward Leo. “How is Lily?”

“She’ll recover.”

Victoria pressed a hand to her chest. “I was terrified.”

One officer asked her to wait in the sitting room. Her expression hardened for a fraction of a second, but she went.

In the cellar, Mateo pried up a loose board beneath the stairs. The blue box was there, wrapped in a trash bag.

Leo recognized the dent on one corner. Elena had dropped it the day they moved into the house. He had teased her for refusing to buy a new one.

Inside were property records, a small notebook, and an envelope addressed to him in Elena’s handwriting.

Leo opened the envelope first.

“If you’re reading this,” the letter began, “someone has finally frightened me enough to put these thoughts on paper.”

Elena wrote that she had discovered false invoices moving money through a shipping company Leo partly owned. She had planned to show him everything. She had also written a name.

Graham Kensington.

Victoria’s father.

Leo looked at Mateo. “Did Elena ever mention him to you?”

“Once. A week before the explosion. She said she thought he was using our company to move money.”

Leo turned back to the box. Several pages had been torn from Elena’s notebook.

Dana examined the remaining entries. “We need copies made and the originals secured.”

Upstairs, Victoria insisted she had never seen the box. Then an officer showed her a photograph of Lily’s drawing taped to its lid.

“I could have touched it any time,” Victoria said. “I live here.”

She was right. The box alone would prove little about that afternoon. But the officers took her account, the key ring, and the work order. They asked her to leave the house while they investigated.